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Dunmari Frontier - Session 22

Monastery Battles: in which the party fights manticores and orcs who lurk in the Monastery of Bhishma

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker
In Taelgar: May 11, 1748 DR
On Earth: Thursday Apr 08, 2021
Monastery of Bhishma

The Dunmar Fellowship defeats manticores and orcs at the Monastery of Bhishma and uncovers the secrets of the Order of the Awakened Soul.

Session Info

***Character advancement: Kenzo dies for the first time, journeying to the Land of the Dead, where he encounters Bhishma and becomes an initiate into the Order of the Awakened Soul.

Summary

Timeline

  • May 11, 1748 DR, midday: Wellby returns to camp. Kenzo tells party about Rai, his jade fragment, and their connection to the Order of the Awakened Soul and Bhishma.
  • May 11, 1748 DR, early afternoon: Investigate monastery. Fight and kill a manticore family. Fight an orc patrol, killing most and capturing one. Interrogate orc, learning that the only other things in the monastery are ghosts; that Grash keeps a patrol here to report anything suspicious; and that Grash’s armies are strong and will defeat Uzgash’s bastards soon.
  • May 11, 1748 DR, mid-afternoon: Enter common hall of the monastery, find initiation chamber. Kenzo and Seeker proceed down hallway illuminating the history of Bhishma and her miracles. Kenzo becomes initiate of the Bhishma Mystai, known as the Order of the Awakened Soul, dying and being revived during the process.

Narrative

We begin around noon at camp, about 5 miles south of the Monastery of Bhishma, as Wellby returns from scouting as a desert hawk. The party is just finishing their usual midday rest, in the shade of the canyon walls along the dry river, and deciding what to do next. First, though, Kenzo tells them about Rai, the Heroes of the Great War, and Kenzo’s possible connection, via the Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand he carries, to Rai, and the fact that the Order of the Awakened Soul, who Rai told Kenzo to seek, is also the Mysteries of Bhishma. The discussion turns to more recent history, and pondering again what could have happened thirty years ago that nearly destroyed the Order of the Awakened Soul and left their monastery abandoned. 

After some discussion of the past, the party turns to Wellby’s scouting report and map. They decide that during the heat of the day, while everything is quiet, may be a better time to explore than dusk, and so head for the monastery. Making a small camp and leaving horses and gear at the foot of the cliffs, the party heads around the bend in the river to approach the monastery from the west. 

As the party scouts the monastery, passing through the gardens and slopes leading down the river, Wellby, scouting ahead, hears the sounds of evil childlike laughter and what might be a sleeping lion’s soft growling coming from a large one story building ahead. Deciding to scout invisibly, Delwath goes through the kitchens, and Kenzo and Wellby look through the crumbling wall. In the large common room and dining area of the monastery, two large creatures – with the body of lions, leathery wings, and humanoid faces – are sleeping, while smaller young are taunting each other. 

After some debate, the party decides they cannot let the manticores live, as they will be a threat to Baxter and the horses if they wake up and go hunting. They concoct a plan to drop a Driftglobe while invisible to lure the little ones away, then surprise the parents. Although they start with some bad luck, the combination of Seeker’s metal heat heating and searing one of the manticores, and a well placed, if very loud, shatter spell makes relatively quick work of the beasts. While they don’t have any treasure to speak of, the bones and refuse in their lair does contain some relatively fresh gnoll skeletons. 

The very loud sounds of the battle draw the attention of an orc patrol, who had been resting in the nearby bathhouse, out of the sun. Seeker enlarges Kenzo, and between the giant monk and Delwath’s usual skill with the sword, the Orcs are dispatched without much danger. As the last surviving orc turns to flee, a well-placed suggestion from Seeker compels him to surrender and talk to save his life. 

From the orc captive, the party learns that the only other creatures in this complex that he is aware of are the ghosts, who keep the Orcs from entering the tower or the Hall of Stories. The Orcs feed the manticores occasionally, but otherwise all is pretty quiet. They come for a few days to keep watch and report anything suspicious to Grash; this war band is due to be relieved tomorrow afternoon. According to this orc anyway, Grash’s armies are strong and will defeat Uzgash’s bastards, who are somewhere to the south, soon. As the spell ends and the orc turns angry and hostile, the party leaves him locked in the bathhouse, with the doors barred from the outside.

Returning to the dining hall that was the manticore’s lair, the party examines the large door in the far wall, painted with images of Bhishma and the words, “Let those who would enter my presence and accept my grace kneel before me and offer their prayers.” As Kenzo kneels and prays, the door swings open, revealing an antechamber of sorts, undisturbed by Orcs or beasts but worn down by time. A wardrobe holds rotting robes, and a chest contains holy water. The room reminds Kenzo of the preparation for initiation into the Lakan Mystai, with the robes and holy water especially. 

Proceeding through another small room into a long corridor, the lights go out and all is dark for a moment, until, down the hallway, a scene on the wall is illuminated, a large group of people, carrying all their worldly possessions, pulling carts and livestock, fleeing from some tangled mass of darkness. You can feel the wind in your hair, and remember the feeling, the ache of leaving home and having to flee to new lands. Sensing a choice as to whether to continue down this path into the mysteries of Bhishma, or turn back, Seeker and Kenzo choose to continue and experience the ritual of initiation to Bhishma’s myseries, while Wellby and Delwath turn back to the entry room to wait.